When selling your home online, the visual representation of your pictures are an important success factor. Most people who are selling their home themselves think that the listing pictures are the least of their worries. That is where many homeowners go wrong however. The type and quality of listing pictures you put online has a lot to do with how fast and easy your home sells.
Homeowners used to depend on curb appeal to draw buyers into their home. In today’s modern world however, nine times out of 10, the best way to draw in perspective buyers is going to be to put the right photos of your home online for them to see. Below you will find some tips for how to take and choose the right pictures when selling your home online.
Before You Take the Photos
Preparing to take the photos is just as important as choosing the right photos when you are selling your home online. There are a few things that you will want to do, to make sure that your listing pictures come out crisp, clean, and full of color and life.
Invest in a decent camera: The first thing you will want to do is invest in a decent camera. And you may need to put down the cell phone and get yourself a good point and click digital camera. Even though cell phones take good pics today, there’s often more advantages to the digital cameras such as extra lighting control and lighting can make a big difference on a picture that grabs attention. You can find a good digital camera that will not put a huge dent in your budget and take quality pictures that you will be proud to put up on your listing. It’s even better if you get your hands on a full frame DSLR or can afford a photographer, but not essential.
More, you are trying to achieve capturing sharp quality pics and not high megapixels with the pictures you post online. When you post pictures online, you will want to reduce the megapixel size while maintaining quality; this ensures fast downloads online for your viewers! One of the tricks to this is saving your pictures in a format such as PNG because reducing the size does not reduce quality; other formats can lose quality as you reduce size and can lead to blurring effects.
Stage your home: Next, you will want to stage your home, so that you get the best out of the images that you are taking. You want to show off certain rooms and perks of the house to perfection, so that these are the first things that people see when they are studying the listings.
When You are Photographing
Use Natural Lighting: When you are taking pictures of the rooms in your home, you will want to open the curtains and doors to let in as much natural light as possible. The built in flash on a camera can make things look unnatural and will reflect off mirrors and other shiny surfaces.
Take Tons of Photos: Digital cameras are designed to take tons of photos. You should take a lot of photos at different angles and if you have a higher quality camera that can control shutter speed (allowing light in longer), try some outside night pics too; a nice feature of country homes sometimes! You can then go through the pictures later and choose the ones that best fit what you are looking to show perspective buyers.
After The Photo Session
Choose the Right Photos: Once you are satisfied with your snapshots, you should sit down and choose the right photos to suit your needs. Make sure that there are no photos where the room is cast in shadows or that only half of the room is showing. Once you have the right photos, create a listing page that does them the most justice, relax, and get ready to sell your home!
These are just a few tips to help you with your photo session and choose the best photos for selling your home online. From using a lot of natural light to creating a good listing page, you will sell your home faster by following these tips.